


A World of Their Own

by misszeldasayre



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fluff, Future Fic, Happy Ending, Light Angst, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 22:08:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28945677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misszeldasayre/pseuds/misszeldasayre
Summary: After surviving the Battle of Exegol, Rey embraces anonymity to seek out her happily ever after with Ben by her side.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 31
Kudos: 103
Collections: To Find Your Kiss: The Reylo Fanfiction Anthology's Valentine's Day Exchange





	A World of Their Own

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OccasionallyCreative](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OccasionallyCreative/gifts).



> Based on the following prompt:
> 
> After the Battle of Exegol, Rey seeks out her happily ever after.

Under the waves of Kef Bir sinks the body of Kylo Ren and buried in the bowels of a long-forgotten Sith temple on Exegol lays the fallen last Jedi. At least that’s what the Resistance maintains in its official transmissions. It’s simpler that way, both heroes and villains laid to rest with the old ways. No more Sith or Jedi, no more First Order armored in empire white.

Rey, for one, is eager to maintain the myth, whispering it like a prayer at each port she docks. Her companion, almost twice her height and half again her width, says little outside of the privacy of their ship, but back aboard the _Falcon_ after a pit stop on Ryloth, he pins her to the cockpit corridor with nothing but a twist of his lips.

“They don’t recognize us. Not out here.”

She exults in Ben’s revelation. Maybe a future together is possible now that their former ghosts have been laid to rest. Soon their names will disappear into myths whispered by only their closest friends, the ones who gave them permission to kill the past and run into the future.

They fly from system to system, aimlessly at first for they have nowhere else to be, no tired organizations demanding their allegiance. Then patterns begin to emerge: the way Rey gravitates toward green planets and the way Ben picks ocean planets even though the seas remind him of home. They haven’t had homes for a while, not really. So they continue flying, never docking in one spaceport for more than a handful of days until the freighter’s hyperdrive refuses to engage.

Purchasing a new one is easy enough after Rey pilots the ship to Ogem and grunts a few guttural phrases at the onodone running the shipyard. Ben stares, fascinated as the syllables roll off of her tongue. Once the onodone’s trunk-like mouth waves in agreement and he waddles off to retrieve the new hyperdrive, Rey turns to Ben, an apology on her lips.

“He tried to upsell us, but I told him where he could stick his extra credits.” She shrugs when he just stares. “It’s all I remembered how to say.”

“You learned Onodonian. Where?”

“Picked up a few phrases from traders in Niima.”

His admiring gaze turns her insides molten. He doesn’t have to say anything to make her understand how he feels about her. Rey carries that admiration with her as they trek back to the ship, the new hyperdrive tucked into her satchel.

The shipyard manager offers to install the hyperdrive for them. “For only half the price over,” Rey scoffs. So they do it themselves because they might as well learn how to care for their new home. Rey doesn’t know when she’s started thinking of the ship in those terms, but she finds the description apt and thinks Ben might, too. After all, he grew up in it, learned how to fly with it. Watched his father die by it.

The old hyperdrive comes out easily enough, but Ben’s finger catches between ship and drive as he slips the new one inside. A curse slips out in a long forgotten tongue, snippets of which Han taught him years ago. It hangs between them, and now Rey’s the one glancing at him in a new light.

“You speak Mandaba?” Then she rattles off a phrase too fast for Ben to follow.

“What did you say?” His awe returns, although Rey wonders if it ever really disappears. It’s wondrous, to be loved like this after pining for a family for so long. He passes off the curse as a family heirloom, then looks at her eagerly, the hyperdrive forgotten. “Teach me more.”

“I don’t know much.” But she slips him words along with sleepy morning kisses, between drinks at cantinas too grimy to tell apart, after choppy landings that leave them rattling around the cockpit.

“ _Zaglis_ ,” she says, pointing out a pickpocket swerving between the market crowds on Nanth’ri. They take her down with two jabs to the neck, leaving her tied up for the local marshall to discover. Ben tests out the word until it dissolves to nonsense in Rey’s ears.

“ _Degvielas_ ,” she explains when a fuel line ruptures and they set about repairing it. Ben struggles with this word, mauling the vowels and forcing the last syllable until Rey repeats it, slower this time.

“ _Kurso_ ,” she moans when his fingers send her spinning out in bliss, and again when her body collapses on his.

“ _Kurso_ ,” he agrees and kisses her so softly she wonders if her imagination is out to fool her. A year ago as she pushed him away through their bond in the Force, craving his presence all the while, she couldn’t have imagined this sweet anonymity, a shield that allows them to become one.

Solitude preserves their secret lives, but it also grates sometimes. After a few weeks of living on the _Falcon_ , camping in the jungles of Glee Anselm without encountering another living creature beyond a pack of lizard-gulls croaking from dusk to dawn, they seek out a seedy Outer Rim spaceport just to lose themselves in a crowd. Surrounding themselves with people almost allows them to pretend they’re a normal couple, two people madly in love and roaming the galaxy for the thrill of it all. Not two fugitives proclaimed dead and given the chance to start anew.

Twin black cloaks weave through a bustling outpost, dusty and crowded with more lifeforms than can comfortably fit among the stalls and streets. Twin suns beat down upon the cloaks, driving the figures to seek refuge in a dimly lit cantina that reeks of sweet smoke. The only seats available line the bar, more conspicuous than Rey would like. Yet she’s tired and hot, so she allows the service droid to take their orders and keeps her hood pulled up all the while.

At the bar sits a pair of Selonians, a small collection of empty beer mugs growing between them as they chatter in Mandaba and sip frothy ales. Their fur gleams white under the bar lights, and they hardly glance up from their conversation when Rey and Ben join them. Strains of their conversation drift in and out of Rey’s ears as she swallows a cold flute of crystalmead that washes the dust from her tongue.

“What can you understand?” she asks Ben, curious to see what Mandaba he can pick out after their piecemeal lessons. These Selonians’ accents are softer than the ones at the Niima Outpost, so she wonders if he’ll have an easier time of it than she did. He stills, craning to make out their neighbors’ conversation over the cantina’s hubbub. His massive height and obvious curiosity draws the Selonians’ attention. They peer at Rey and Ben until Rey offers a smile and holds up her flute in greeting. They return the gesture and turn back to their conversation.

“ _Kā-fa dzērieniem_?” the shorter Selonian asks her companion after draining her mug.

The taller Selonian wrinkles his nose, mumbling a disparaging, “ _Kurso-kurso._ ” So-so. From the looks of it, Ben’s listening, too, although his fisted hands and stormcloud frown confuse Rey. When he pushes back his stool and bolts upright, reaching for his concealed saber at his waist, Rey has to forcibly yank him back onto his seat.

“Not here,” she hisses. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

“So are you.” He directs his scowl at her, a remnant of their first interaction through the connection that still links them today. His frustration bleeds through their bond, tickling the back of her throat. She notices his eyes flickering between her and the Selonians a few stools down, still chattering away, oblivious to the danger lurking in their periphery.

“Let them drink in peace.” Rey pushes Ben’s own glass at him, an attempt to distract him. He ignores the whiskey sloshing onto the counter, slamming down his fist and further rattling the glass.

“I heard them talking about you. Making faces. Saying you were so-so. You’re anything but so-so.”

A chuckle escapes Rey; she takes his fist in hand and wraps her fingers between his. “Ben,” she says so lightly that his eyes widen self-consciously. “They were talking about their drinks.”

He freezes under her light touch before nodding stiffly and bends down to kiss her hard, tasting like caramel and booze. “Maybe we stick to Basic,” he says once they leave behind the cantina and the Selonian drinkers. But Rey shakes her head.

“Maybe you need more practice.” When Ben shoots her a sidelong glance, she grins. “You might as well! We have all the time in the galaxy.”

A hand snakes out from his cloak to wrap around hers, so warm and certain that Rey finds herself hungry to uncover what those days—years—that they’ve promised to each other have in store.

Later that evening once the darkness has swallowed the twin suns and with them, the planet, Rey lays curled up with Ben in a bunk aboard the _Falcon_. He’s running a hand through her loose hair, and she’s on the brink of sleep. There’s nowhere she’d rather be. She almost misses it when he murmurs low enough to get lost in her dreams.

“Hm?” she asks.

“Are you happy?” Ben seems more uncertain than she’s seen him since the First Order crumbled at the price of her life. It pushes away the sleep threatening to overtake Rey, leaving her blinking wide-eyed at his shift in mood. “Your friends are gone. You deserve a home. A family.”

“ _Gimene-fa._ ” It doesn’t require a translation because her fervent tone says it all. She nestles into his chest, hoping that the press of her body against his makes clear her intent: she’s going nowhere. “You’re my family. This is our home.”

Under the waves of Kef Bir lies the body of Kylo Ren and buried in a temple on Exegol rests the body of the last Jedi, but aboard the _Millennium Falcon_ docked in a distant system _,_ Rey and Ben are born anew in each other’s love.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for the delightful prompt! Hope this fulfilled your idea of a happily ever after for Rey, and hope you have a wonderful Valentine's. :)


End file.
